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In this episode, James Vanreusel joins Marshall Hawks, who leads the Northern California technology relationship management team at SV, in a discussion that revolves around the role of venture debt providers, particularly Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), in supporting companies at various stages of their life cycle.

Marshall Hawks from SVB shares insights on their approach to lending, emphasizing that at early stages, they often align with equity funding. As companies progress and achieve milestones, the focus shifts to financial analysis based on specific metrics and trends. Marshall highlights a case involving Planet Labs, where SVB provided capital based on the company's potential for a positive outcome, including a successful SPAC process.

The conversation then transitions to incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) in banking operations. Marshall acknowledges the significance of AI but notes the challenges faced by regulated financial firms, such as SVB, in leveraging AI due to regulatory considerations. He shares that while AI is a prevalent topic, its implementation within SVB is constrained by the need to navigate legal landscapes and potential data security issues. Marshall provides a concrete example of AI usage in marketing, where AI-generated graphics and design were employed in a campaign.

And more. Listen now.

Learn more about our guest:

Marshall Hawks | SVB website

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Welcome back to the Scale By Numbers Podcast.

In this episode, James Vanreusel interviews Eric Bahn, the Co-founder, General partner and hustler at Hustle Fund.

Eric's journey from the heart of Detroit, Michigan, to the epicenter of technology innovation in Silicon Valley is an inspiring one. He's no stranger to hustle, and he's here to share his insights on what it takes to succeed as a founder, investor, and a family man.

With a background that includes time at tech giants like Facebook and Instagram, Eric also has a finger on the pulse of emerging technologies, including the impact of artificial intelligence and the trends that will shape the startup landscape in the coming year.

Learn more about our guest:

Eric Bahn's Linkedin | Hustle Fund

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This episode of the Scale by Numbers podcast welcomes Glenn Gow, a seasoned C.E.O. coach and board member focusing on AI, to share insights into his journey. Glenn discusses his transition from a 25-year CEO role to venture capital, where he recognized AI-related patterns, leading to a deep involvement in the current landscape. The conversation touches upon McKinsey's study on AI impact, distinguishing between traditional and generative AI, and the importance of CEOs embracing these changes.

The episode underscores the significance of CEOs understanding both traditional and generative AI. Glenn Gow emphasizes the transformative potential of AI, particularly in areas like chatbots and image generators. The call to lean into these changes is coupled with a cautionary note about potential pitfalls, urging CEOs to be mindful of assumptions, the limitations of generative AI, and the importance of keeping a human in the loop. The discussion also addresses the evolving job landscape due to AI, highlighting a CEO's experience with the impact on problem-solving dynamics.

Key Takeaways:

Getting your team involved with AI, even if you are not a software company, as soon as possible is essential.

Learn more about our guest:

Glenn Gow LinkedIn | Website

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Welcome back to the Scale By Numbers Podcast.

In this episode, James Vanreusel interviews Cameron Newton, an investment manager and founding member of Relevance Ventures. Cameron shares his background, starting as an investment banker before transitioning into venture capital. Relevance Capital focuses on health and wellness investments, primarily in Series A and Series B stages. They employ a reverse barbell strategy, aiming for high returns with seed investments while also focusing on scaling businesses in the 1 to 10 million revenue range.

The conversation then delves into the concept of impact investing. Cameron explains that Relevance Ventures defines impact from a ground-up perspective, building companies with impact-focused cultures, diverse boards, and management teams. They measure impact through the longevity and success of these companies, emphasizing that financial return is crucial for sustainability and long-term impact. They prioritize investments that serve underserved populations, use sustainable practices, and have readily available products.

Key Takeaways:

The importance of an AI component in any business.
How to get a good introduction to VCs.
The good timing to investing as valuations went down.

Learn more about our guest:

Cameron Newton's Linkedin | Relevance Ventures

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In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Steve Brotman, a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and fund manager with an impressive track record in the world of venture capital and startups. Steve is the founder and Managing Partner at Alpha Partners and a Strategic Advisor to the Pritzker Group's venture arm, Pritzker Group Venture Capital.

Steve's venture capital journey began as the co-founder and Managing Director of Greenhill SAVP, a venture capital unit of Greenhill & Co that later became Tribeca Venture Partners. Managing a fund with $100 million in assets, Steve focused on technology and business information services, becoming an early institutional investor in successful companies like LivePerson (Nasdaq: LPSN) and Medidata Solutions (Nasdaq: MDSO).

Beyond venture capital, Steve's entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found AdOne, an online classified advertising platform that originated as a class assignment at Columbia Business School but grew to serve over one-third of the newspaper industry, ultimately being acquired by a consortium led by Hearst. Steve's outstanding contributions have earned him accolades, including being named a finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, recognition in Crain's Tech 100, and inclusion in the Top 40 under 40 among New York business leaders.

Steve Brotman's extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and fund manager makes him a valuable guest, and we look forward to delving into his insights and experiences in the world of venture capital and entrepreneurship in this episode.

Key Takeaways:

The Blackjack analogy - how to double down on the winners.
Green lights and red lights in investments;
AI is here to stay, how to get ready for it.

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Welcome to our platform, your go-to source for the latest news, politics, and social developments from around the world. Stay informed and engaged with our comprehensive coverage, designed to bring you up-to-date information on the most significant global events shaping our society.

In our ever-changing world, it is essential to stay connected and well-informed. Our dedicated team of journalists and contributors work tirelessly to provide you with accurate and reliable news from all corners of the globe. We strive to cover a wide range of topics, including politics, social issues, and cultural phenomena, ensuring a well-rounded understanding of the world we live in.

From breaking news to in-depth analysis, our articles delve into the heart of the matter, shedding light on the complex dynamics that influence our societies. We aim to provide you with diverse perspectives, inviting dialogue and fostering a deeper understanding of global issues.

Stay connected with the world at your fingertips. With our platform, you'll have access to the latest news, political insights, and social developments that shape our global society. Join us as we navigate the complexities of our world, bringing you the stories that matter most.

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Today, we welcome David Spreng, the founder of Runway Growth Capital, a Silicon Valley-based investment firm that provides venture debt financing to growth-stage companies. David has over 30 years of experience as a VC and growth debt lender and has been actively involved in the formation and development of nearly 50 technology companies. He has been ranked four times by Forbes magazine on their annual Midas List as one of the top 50 VCs, and in 2006, he was ranked the #8 VC.

David's expertise in how venture debt has become critical for sustaining established companies has helped companies like Madison Reed secure $50 million in venture debt. In this episode, David shares his insights into the rising popularity of venture debt as an alternative to venture capital, particularly for established companies and household names.

Key takeaways:* Growth lending and venture debt [7:06] * Counterparty risk and risk management. [14:41] * The long-term model of venture debt. [17:04] * Being a good partner is about knowing the risk. [42:35]

Want to learn more about Runway Growth Capital? Check out their website here where you can view case studies and learn more about growth lending and venture debt.

You can also email David directly at ds@runawaygrowth.com or on LinkedIn.

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In this episode, we're joined by Tony Quintong, the Founder of The Securieon Group, a business consulting and M&A advisory firm. With extensive experience in pre-and post-M&A advisory roles, Tony shares his expertise in navigating the challenging M&A landscape.We delve into Tony's innovative growth strategies that have helped businesses improve profitability, secure growth capital, and eventually exit at a higher valuation. Tony also shares his insights on the importance of market analysis in M&A, and how businesses can effectively position themselves for successful acquisitions. He emphasizes the importance of communication and alignment between all parties involved in an M&A transaction, including the target company, the acquiring company, and any investors or stakeholders.Throughout the episode, Tony provides valuable advice for businesses looking to navigate the complex M&A landscape, including tips on due diligence, negotiation tactics, and post-merger integration. Tune in to gain valuable insights from an experienced M&A advisor and business consultant.Key takeaways: The double-edged sword of Silicon Valley Bank. [2:10] * The emotional return on investment in tech. [5:08] * How do you prepare for an exit? [10:56] * The importance of innovation and adaptability. [16:44] * How to choose a good client? [36:32] Ready To Scale?*But not ready to invest in a CFO? One of our bespoke packages can help you.

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In this episode, we talk to Bharat Kanodi who helps startup founders and VCs know how much their companies are worth. He has valued over 4000 businesses and signed off on assets worth $2.6 trillion in value. He has appraised unique assets like the Golden Gate Bridge, Atlanta Airport, Uber, Airbnb, Yahoo!, Brooklyn Bridge, and Mirage Casino LV, among many others.

Either if you are a founder or an investor, knowing how to properly evaluate a company is essential to a successful round.

Key Takeaways from this episode:

The 409A valuation [2'50"]
Down round and stock options [12'38"]
Valuation x Stock Price what are the correspondences
Closing date: the beginning of a relationship, not the ending
Two reasons people buy businesses.

To get in touch with Bharat, you can find him on LinkedIn or Youtube.

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In this episode, we talk to Justin Daniels. Justin is a shareholder, M&A and transactional lawyer at the AmLaw 100 firm Baker Donelson. He works on global clients in cutting edge industries like fintech, Saas, blockchain, drones and autonomous vehicles. Justin helps companies manage cyber risk as part of the M&A process, launching new products, negotiating complex business contracts and managing ransomware and data breaches. He is also a national keynote speaker and TedX speaker, co-hosts the popular She Said Privacy/He Said Security Podcast and is co-author of the Wall Street Journal Best Selling Book, Data Reimagined: Building Trust One Byte At a Time.

Key Takeaways from this episode:
* The Three-Layer Chocolate Cake Approach [5:57] * How do you go into a company pre-acquisition. [11:07] * What is a smart contract? What’s the problem with them? [18:27] * Cybersecurity as a roadblock to mass adoption. [23:42] * What is Data Reimagined? [26:06]

To get in touch with Justin, you can find him on LinkedIn as Justin S. Daniels or by email at Jdaniels@bakerdonelson.com.

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In this episode of Scale By Numbers, we talk with Rhea Wong. Rhea is a fundraising consultant, author, and she also has a course called Fundraising Accelerator for non-profits. She uses her 15+ years of fundraising experience to help nonprofits tweak their message, clarify their ideal donor, engage their board, streamline their processes, and make an effective ask. She provides clarity and a plan to move a nonprofits individual donor program forward.

Key Takeaways from this episode:

How are you attracting ideal donors?
What are you doing to cultivate the donor relationship?
How to get Board Members to be a bigger part of fundraising
The Money Relationship regarding donations and giving
What is Money Baggage and how are donors thinking about it?

Want to learn more about Rhea? Check out her website HERE and grab a copy of her book HERE.

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In this episode of Scale By Numbers, we talk to Hayden Cohen, a New York based entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of Near. Near helps fast growing companies and enterprises scale remote teams with the best talent in Latin America. Hayden started Near in 2020 after hiring remote teammates from Latin America for his startup studio, Effectual Ventures. He leads Product and Go-To Market efforts for Near.

Key Takeaways in this episode:

How to save time and money hiring with near [13:13]
The culture of hiring in Latin America [20:04]
The Benefits of hiring talent in Latin America [25:33]
Contracts and Compliance [33:53]
How to filter bad applications [43:35]

Want to learn more about Hire With Near? Check out their website HERE where you can view case studies, a resource page, and sign up for their newsletter.

You can also email Hayden directly at Hayden@hirewithnear.com.

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The Economics Era of Values-Driven Marketing
In this episode of Scale By Numbers, we spoke with David Allison. David has been described as a human values expert, a global researcher and a best-selling author. His company, Valuegraphics, focuses on mapping the core human values of everyone on earth and has spent decades doing research on values-driven data. It’s all about market research, marketing, and what actually makes people tick.

David is a national keynote speaker, and Best Seller and author of We Are All The Same Age Now and, most recently, The Death of Demographics.

Key Takeaways in this episode:

Why Demographics are no longer helping us understand people [3:18:00]
How to use values to leverage your business [12:59:00}
Practical examples of how to use key-value data to kickstart your business {26:40:00]
The problem with looking at people based on their demographics {31:18:00}

Want to learn more about David Allison and Value Graphics, start HERECheck Out David's new Book, "The Death of Demographics,"HERE.

Dont miss an episode again-Subscribe HERE.

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In this episode of Ask A CFO, host Steve Matthews asks James Vanreusel the difficult questions surrounding raising prices without risking your customers.

Are you experiencing expenses tied to inflation, increasing overheads, and narrowing profit margins? You might be thinking you need to increase your prices.

But does the fear of losing new customers, or even worse, your long-term customers, keep you awake at night? Well, this episode might help you out.

Learn how to communicate price increases with your customers and realize the fear vs rewards when raising your prices.

Need CFO-level support and strategic advice but are not ready for an interim CFO? The CFO thinking partner may be able to help. Learn more here:

https://products.vanreuselventures.com/starter-sign-up

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/

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Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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In this episode of Ask A CFO with James Vanreusel and Steve Matthews, we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of hiring after disruptive Covid-19-related constraints.

Along with the benefits of flexible work and remote job applications, new employment issues have emerged, and many countries are seeing some of their lowest employment rates.

We discuss the benefits of recruiting internationally as well as challenges that might interrupt work, such as time zones and flexibility in certain professions.

Hire with Near– You can get in touch by going to hirewithnear.com or sending an email to franco@hirewithnear.com.

https://www.hirewithnear.com/free-guides/hiring-remotely-in-latin-america

Need CFO-level support and strategic advice but are not ready for an interim CFO? The CFO thinking partner may be able to help. Learn more here:

https://products.vanreuselventures.com/starter-sign-up

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/

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Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Investing in the New Frontier of Space Connectivity with Katherine Monson

Have you ever wondered how private businesses operate in space? It's difficult to comprehend the technological advancements and innovations in commercial space industries that can truly benefit humans on Earth!

In this episode of Scale by Numbers, we speak with Katherine Monson, the Chief Operating Officer for Hedron, who is working on communications infrastructure in space. Hedron is an aerospace company that is developing a hybrid RF and optical relay network in order to improve communication between space and Earth.

It’s fascinating to hear Katherine speak about the different layers of the space industry and how Hedron is trying to create faster connectivity between space and earth with lasers!

What You’ll Learn:

How businesses operate in space
The different types of companies in space
How important the commercial space sector is
What fundraising is like for space startups
How the space industry differs from 10 years ago
The unique ecosystem in the space industry
Whether or not governments control business operations
The problems that Hedron is trying to solve

Key Takeaways

How beneficial the space industry is to people here on earth
The new innovations that are revolutionizing the space industry
The logistics of operating a business in space

Want to learn more? Start HERE

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One of our bespoke packages can help you. One of our membership options may be able to help. Learn more here

Pro Membership:

This is ideal for those who want to do it themselves, but with a thinking partner by their side! Gain the hands-on training and access to our community that you need at this stage of your business.

Enterprise Package:

Perfect for companies who are on the edge of growth, and ready to take that next step but want someone to do the work for you. Bring us on board as your interim CFO. We'll guide you through the planning & execution you'll need to guide your growth. From modeling to M&A our expert team is ready to dive in.

Connect with us

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel
YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm
Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Diana Mao - CEO and Co-Founder of Nomi Network

In this episode of scale by numbers, we talk with the co-founder and CEO of Nomi Network, Diana Mao. Diana and two other women passionate about human rights founded Nomi Network to provide economic opportunities for survivors of human trafficking and women at risk of human trafficking.

Diana discusses her motivation for founding Nomi Network, the challenges she’s encountered along the way, and the positive impact her foundation has had worldwide.

Their partnerships and grants, along with donations received, have enabled them to set up ten training sites. The team is very outcome-driven, taking wisdom from the private sector and adapting their learnings for their non-profit model.

What You’ll Learn:

What Diana has learned from the past 12 years of running Nomi Network.
The systemic barriers that Nomi Network faces.
How to build partnerships and acquire funding.
Where to get seed funding as a charity / non-profit.
How to manage cash / donor burnout.
How much benefit one donation can have.
The importance of building trust in a community.

Key Takeaways:

The value of investing in a human being is astronomical.
Look for ways to invest in those around you.
You can be part of the solution by doing your part every day.

Want to learn more about Nomi Network and their mission to end human trafficking? Start Here

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One of our bespoke packages can help you. One of our membership options may be able to help. Learn more here

Pro Membership:

This is ideal for those who want to do it themselves, but with a thinking partner by their side! Gain the hands-on training and access to our community that you need at this stage of your business.

Enterprise Package:

Connect with us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel
YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm
Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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How Board Members Support the Success of The Start-Up CEO

In this episode of Scale By Numbers, we have an exciting conversation with Heidi Roizen of Threshold Ventures, who has worked as a venture capitalist for over 20 years.

She shares experiences as a board member, giving her incredible insight into the value that a board of directors brings to businesses, small and large.

Understand the board of directors' role and their authority in making decisions, what it takes to become a productive board member, along with the challenges a board member can face.

What You’ll Learn:

What you should consider when choosing board members.
What authority do different boards have, and what roles do they play?
The difficulties a member of a board of directors may face.
What obligations do you have as a board member?
Differences between mentors, advisory boards, and governing boards.
Why does a company need a board of directors?
How important are the relationships with stakeholders?
How to become a productive board member.
How to find a work-life balance as a board member.

Key Takeaways:

Understand what a typical resume of a board member looks like.
Let people know that becoming a board member is something you’re interested in.
Meet with others who are on the board you’re interested in.

Want to learn more about Threshold Ventures? Start Here.

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One of our bespoke packages can help you. One of our membership options may be able to help. Learn more here

Pro Membership:

This is ideal for those who want to do it themselves, but with a thinking partner by their side! Gain the hands-on training and access to our community that you need at this stage of your business.

Enterprise Package:

Connect with us:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel

Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm

Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Discover the fundamentals of growing a nonprofit in the tech space, and explore the differences between for-profit and nonprofit organizations. How do you set yourself up for success with a nonprofit?

In this episode of Scale by Numbers, we talk with co-founder Kevin Barenblat of Fast Forward, a tech accelerator specifically for nonprofits. Fast Forward has accelerated over 70 nonprofits with their unique mentorship, training, and valuable connections.

Kevin has a deep understanding of the challenges of nonprofits in tech and shares his experience

scaling social impact organizations that collectively have raised over 300 million in funding and impacted over 100 million lives.

What You’ll Learn:
* How to run a nonprofit organization in the tech space * Challenges and opportunities within the nonprofit tech model * How to scale a nonprofit by joining an accelerator. * How technology can be beneficial to scale organizations. * How entrepreneurs can learn from others' mistakes. * The unique ecosystem Fast Forward offers for nonprofits. * How nonprofits can make an additional source of capital. * How to leverage peer networks. * Financial models used within the industry.

Key Takeaways:
* Differences between a for-profit, and a nonprofit that is looking at impact at scale. * Be very specific in the accelerators that you participate in. * Knowing who the right people are to do your bookkeeping, your accounting, your HR, and all the things that technology nonprofits are really looking for is really critical.

Ready to learn more about the Fast Forward Accelerator? Start Here

Ready To Scale? But not ready to invest in CFO?
One of our bespoke packages can help you. One of our membership options may be able to help. Learn more here

Pro Membership:This is ideal for those who want to do it themselves, but with a thinking partner by their side! Gain the hands-on training and access to our community that you need at this stage of your business.

Enterprise Package:Perfect for companies who are on the edge of growth, and ready to take that next step but want someone to do the work for you. Bring us on board as your interim CFO. We'll guide you through the planning & execution you'll need to guide your growth. From modeling to M&A our expert team is ready to dive in.

Connect with us
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel
Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm
Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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The OverviewDo you struggle to find a balance between your work and personal life? Do you find yourself up at 3 am thinking about tomorrow’s tasks? You do not need to sacrifice your personal life for career success – you need to plan strategically and more effectively!

In this episode of Scale by Numbers, we talk with Blake Stratton, a business consultant at Full Focus, a performance coaching company that has worked with nearly 1000 businesses. Full Focus helps businesses build strategies for their companies to succeed and aims to help its clients find peace between their work and home lives. They call this the double win - “helping high achievers live their best lives.”

Blake gives insight into their strategies to keep this balance by aligning your goals into daily tasks. We discover the importance of using a planner efficiently, creating a positive work environment, finding pain points and opportunities in your business, and much more.

In this episode, you will learn:

How to find out who your audience is.
How to narrow your focus on your most important goals.
How to plan your workdays efficiently.
How to find the perfect work/life balance.
How you can reduce your business costs.
How to keep motivated and stay productive.
How you can learn from other businesses mistakes.
How to create a great work culture within your business.
How you can benefit from having a coach.

Key TakeawayBlake said, you don't get extra credit for going it alone, you don't get extra credit for trial and error, you don't get extra credit, because you said it, I did this without having to ask anyone for help. There are no bragging rights, it's overrated.

That statement really encompasses his philosophy, but also the company that he works with that if you need help there is so much help out there. Whether it's different courses, mentors, or professional business coaches. When you need that help to accelerate your personal development or business growth, dont wait. You dont want to become the lid on your company's growth

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The Overview:

How to find investment opportunities? How to prepare for an investment? What are the barriers to growth and how do you scale?

In this episode of Scale By Numbers, we are excited to talk with Robin Bruce, president of the Dovetail Impact Foundation, where the team invests their time, treasure, and talent into organizations that promote human flourishing. They have supported numerous causes and organizations for over 25 years and have plentiful experience funding and scaling organizations.

Robin explains the foundation's investment model and how she applies it to achieve sustainable partnerships, giving insight into the growth indicators her team looks for before investing in a business, such as their vision, budget and projections, and more.

She also describes how they often have to dig deeper than the surface level before understanding all sides of a business. She discusses some internal choices they make to ensure they don’t have to interfere with an organization's mission as a financial investor.

Highlights:

What is impact investing / social impact funding?
Preparing your business for scale & managing budget.
Expansion opportunities and blockages to growth.
Business models that have evolved over the past 5 years.
Determining high potential investment opportunities
Keeping up with budget, financial analysis and projections.
How to get involved with impact investments?

Want to learn more about Dove Tail : Start Here

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Running a company is just about the most difficult thing you can do. So when we get a hold of someone who has done the work and knows what it takes, we listen.

Jared Dillian is an author, the creator of the Daily Dirtnap, and the host of The Jared Dillian Show and 'Be Smart" Podcast. He is here to join us as we talk about market psychology, from creating your own luck to what it takes to run a podcast.

What You’ll Learn:

How to create a niche for yourself
The ins and outs of the recession narrative
How a CEO should think about the current market with inflation
What younger entrepreneurs should know about risk taking
How your comfort zone can differ and how it comes into play when running a company
The top 3 most interesting people Jared has interviewed
What bonds look like these days
Chances of a recession on the horizon
How to build a strong inner circle

Interested in Learning More about Jared Dillian? Start HereSubscribe to the Daily Dirt Nap: Start Here
Subscribe to Jared Dillians 'Be Smart' Podcast: Start here

Need CFO-level support and strategic advisory, but are not ready for an interim CFO?

The Vanreusel Ventures Pro Membership Plan could help! Start Here
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel
Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm
Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Owen is an investment manager at Jasmine Social Investments. Jasmine model is supporting and funding non-profits that focus on social impact issues surrounding health, education, and livelihood.

What You’ll Learn:

The investment process
What Jasmine looks for in the companies they invest in
Owen’s view on projections of the exponential takeoff of impact at scale
The time commitment it takes to find new companies to invest in
How many companies a year does Jasmine add?
How to deal with growth
Themes/Industries they focus on
Business models, he wish worked better
Where the gaps are in the market
The ecosystems they play in
How to get the attention of Jasmine (or any other investment company)
The move from a for-profit focus to a social impact focus
Choosing for-profit VS nonprofit

Want to learn more about Jasmine Social Investments: Start Here

Need CFO-level support and strategic advisory, but are not ready for an interim CFO?

One of our membership options may be able to help. Start Here

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel

Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm

Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Venture Capital Studios are a rather new way to tackle the sticky situation around funding. Learn from someone with major studio experience on how it differs from other forms of funding.

Jake Horowitz started his first company at 8 years old, a skateboard repair company. It failed miserably. But at 18 he started a design agency and made his way into the venture studio space in 2017. In 2018 he started the Global Startup Studio Network, which later sold to the Global Accelerator Network.

He now consults with about 120 studios around the world. He’s here to teach us all a lot about the studio space, and why it has changed SO much in the past 6 months alone.

Keep up with his thoughts through his newsletter The Co-Founder on Substack, or hear his thoughts on Linkedin.

What You’ll Learn:

The kind of avatar venture studios target
Why should you look at a studio?
Studios VS Accelerators.
Where to go if you’re starting from scratch.
How much equity studios take in a company.
How much studios can provide in terms of support and funding.
If studios are just another trend.
Why “studio” is such a polarizing word.
How the venture world has changed post-covid.
Why geography matters so much in the venture capital world.
What role crypto plays in the studio world.
How community affects venture capital.
How to build a community and why it’s SO important.
How to avoid all the crap in the market.
Why you should build a community first, and a product second.
Why breaking down barriers and building trust is so important.
How NFTs and Tokens can be adopted by organizers, and their place in the future of VC.

What to learn more about the studio model? Start Here
Want to Join the Gallery Partner Venture Studio Membership? Start Here

Need CFO-level support and strategic advisory, but are not ready for an interim CFO?

The CFO thinking partner may be able to help. Learn more here:

http://products.vanreuselventures.com/cfothinkingpartner

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel

Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm

Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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What does it take to win as a business owner? Education? Experience? Funding? Yes, Yes and Yes.
You can have all of those things but still struggle with focus, exhaustion, mental health, and physical health issues. As business owners, we are nothing without a focused mind and healthy body.
How can we access the winning state of mind and maintain it? A healthy body, a healthy mindset. Listen as we discuss some best tools to perform better mentally.

In this episode of Scale By Numbers, we are going to take a deep dive into how YOU can set yourself up for success by focusing on nutrition and lifestyle. We will dig into how investors look at a startup business and CEO mindset, and what it takes to keep your body strong and mind sharp even during the most stressful times.

Today our special guest is Kassandra Hobart, she is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (aka Nutrition Coach) providing expertise on overall health and wellness to business owners. Kassandra is a partner at M2 Performance Nutrition with former experience in banking and if that wasn't enough, a former Crossfit Games athlete. Outside of being a busy nutrition coach, she is also currently working on a project called OMMYX whose mission is to to "radically increase people’s healthspan by developing frameworks for a functional lifestyle."

What you will learn in this episode:

Tips on how to properly feed your body and feed your mind.
What is a winning mindset and what are the tools to obtain it?
How to increase longevity in overall health and wellness.
How a healthy mindset relates to your business.
The importance of nutritional value.
How sports and business are similar.
How being an athlete is similar to that of a business professional.
How a healthy mind relates to healthy business success.

Want to connect with Kassandra

Looking for a nutrition coach? You can start here.
www.kassandrahobart.com Need Nutrition Hacks, and Wellness Tips, visit Kassandra on Instagram@kassandrahobart
Get on the Waitlist for Kassandra's Health and Wellness app OMMYX. www.ommyx.com

Connect with Vanreusel Ventures

Need CFO-level support and strategic advisory, but are not ready for an interim CFO? The CFO thinking partner may be able to help. Learn more here:http://products.vanreuselventures.com/cfothinkingpartner

Connect With Us on Social and catch one of our Monthly Q and A sessions:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel
Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm
Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Nicole Glaros was the first non-founder at TechStars. She joined when the company was at about ten companies in the portfolio, 250,000 under management. Now, TechStars has over 2,500 companies in the portfolio (growing 500 companies per year), and ¾ of a billion dollars under management. She has mastered the world of team building and accelerating.

What Advice Do You Give The Companies in Your Accelerator? One element Nicole uses to screen companies surrounds team cohesion. Meaning asking questions like "What are the founder dynamics?" and "What is the relationship at the executive team level like?". Communication between founders is massive. She'll note if they're respectful to each other if there is any tension, if they are engaging in difficult conversations, or if they choose to ignore their problems. Why? Because it makes or breaks companies.

This stuff shines through pretty fast once you start looking for it. Nicole works with teams on how to build a constructive dynamic. The bottom line, it takes three things to set your company up for success. It takes awareness, attention, and responsibility. If your team doesn't engage in these three things, your business will suffer.

How Do You Test for The 3 Things Before People Come on Board and Mesh with a Larger Team?

Nicole recommends that founding teams and executive leadership teams get coaches. Coaches help keep people honest; it's like low hanging fruit thing if people don't know where to get started. Personality tests are helpful for other people to understand you, so they know how to relate better. There's no correct answer here. A big part of this is finding out what people's values are. Seeing what their core and aspirational values are will help you know how the team meshes together. Core values are how you already behave; they come easy to you and can be unconscious. Aspirational values, on the other hand, are what you're trying to be. You can probably be only 2 or 3 aspirational values as an individual or a team.

As long as your core values are in alignment, the rest will come.

Let's Talk PhilanthropyPhilanthropy can be a core value. The way Nicole sees it, the best thing she can do is give back 10x what she's been given. It doesn't have to be just about money; it can be about time or attention if cash isn't a resource you can give. Youths today are even demanding that their employers do this kind of work; it will help attract great talent.

How do You Cope With Feeling Like You Need To Go Outside of Yourself and Your Team to be Successful? Most of the time, if you've gone through multiple accelerators and have not accelerated, the problem is with the company, not the accelerator. Some things you need more than ANYTHING are creativity and self-confidence that you can figure it out. And it would help if you built a great team. There is no "quick fix" that will solve all of your company's problems. Failure for entrepreneurs is so high because there is no guidebook for this stuff. Keep in mind; you should focus on the outcome you want, not the problem.

Advice for Female Immigrant Founders who Want to be Successful, Need a Confidence Boost, and Look Up to You? Nicole's grandma came to the country when she was 14, alone, without shoes, and with no grasp of the language. Relative to that, we have it SO easy.

For Nicole, knowing that THAT is where her power comes from is a massive motivator. There is no right path to the outcome you want; you build your own. It's one step in front of the other; you'll eventually get there. On your journey, find your tribe, the people who understand, appreciate, and support you. They'll help you more than you know.

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Venture Debt can be confusing if you aren't well versed in its complexities! So to educate you all, we talked with Kevin Zeidan, a venture debt mastermind from Trinity Capital Inc. With 24 years in venture debt, it's safe to assume he knows what the heck is talking about.

Kevin has worked with Promerica, Hercules Capital, Silicon Valley Bank and helped support some companies at their early stages like Uber, Twitter, Twitch, Planet Labs, and other companies at the Seed stage all the way to pre-IPO.

Currently, he is working with Trinity Capital Inc as a Managing Director, where their mission is to support all founders, and are both stage, and sector agnostic.

If you want to connect with Kevin to learn more about him or Trinity Capital, you can reach him at kzeidan@trincapinvestment.com. Thanks, Kevin for making us that much smarter.
What you will learn:

Venture Debt VS Traditional Debt
The truth about Venture Debt Vs Traditional Debt.
How Venture Debt Companies Structure their Loans
How the Timing Matches-Up Between Venture Capital Funds and Venture Debt
What happens If a Company Has Not Reached Exit,
How Equity Investors and Venture Debt Funds Look at Traditional Loans
How a Founder Wanting to Understand Venture Debt Better, understands who to work with, how to originate deals, and where the money comes from.
What Could Go Wrong with Having Venture Debt?
Since Venture Debt is Growing In Popularity, Who Are the New Models? How do they Compete With Incumbents? Should Early Stage Companies Look at Those?
What Would Happen if I Have a Venture Debt Loan, and the Fund I Got The Loan For Collapsed?

Need CFO-level support and strategic advisory, but are not ready for an interim CFO?The CFO thinking partner may be able to help. Learn more here:
http://products.vanreuselventures.com/cfothinkingpartner

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesvanreusel/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/JamesVanreusel
Youtube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7-6z47BPMnY9eJn0gCha6gv1WtquitMm
Website: www.vanreuselventures.com

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Lots of talk in this industry sounds like people just yelling “GO GO GO!”. As CEOs and business owners, we would work ourselves to death if we could. Our James VanReusel sat down with Lately CEO Kate Bradley Chernis to talk about how the world of marketing and fundraising intersects with the difficulties that can come with this industry, financially, physically, and mentally.

What Is Lately?

Lately is a social media management platform that atomizes any video and turns it into mini movie trailers automatically. No more sifting through longform video content by hand, Lately’s AI takes out all the best chunks for you. The AI is soooo smart that it can do the same thing with blogs and podcasts!

How Does Lately Prep a Company to Go Fundraising?

“If you build it they will come” IS NOT TRUE.

Lately markets Lately, 98% sales conversion all because the AI is smart AND because we can do it all by hand (but don’t need to). Lately gives you another FULL TIME employee who just does marketing… except it's a bunch of code

What Have You Learned on Your Journey?

Kate has raised 3.23 million from some of the top investors in Silicon Valley AND New York, and yet has raised no venture money.

Truth is,the goal posts keep moving for women. Even if you check all the boxes and are by far the best in the room (as Kate is), it's still about a billion times harder to raise capital for women than your male competitors.

Kate’s mindset around fundraising is that the venture capital world is mostly broken. She’s met with over 614 investors in 2 years ALONE and only 2 or 3 have taken the time to not “science the system” to death. Thanks Shark Tank.

People forget you’re more than just an elevator pitch full of BS buzzwords. We’re human.

Being a Woman Sucks Sometimes

Male investors LOVE to waste womens time. This business world does not operate like the rest of the world. In this world, no one says what they want and when they are bored with you they just disappear.

At the start of her journey, Kate wanted to come across as a professional, briefcase and all. Now, she’s realized that people want you to OWN them. Confidence that crosses the line over to arrogance, even if you come across as a “bitch” because you’re a woman.

Every meeting is a demo day, not a coffee talk. They want a show, they want you to dance.

How to Stay Sane

All of this is easier said than done, right? But here are a few things Kate touches on that help keep her going amid all the chaos.

Gym and meditation are something that she does daily, as well as focusing on getting the best sleep and diet as possible. One thing to keep you sane is finding a Who for the How. Who can do this for you, who can help with that. Create an army of Whos!

Bottom line: IT'S HARD.

One nugget of truth she’s had to learn along the way is to grant herself the grace to say no, which is sooo much harder than expected because the pressure is so great. It is essential to acknowledge when it’s not working. Whether it’s your health, or your business… When you acknowledge it, you can begin making the change.

If something goes wrong at work, it's a bouncy ball that bounces back. But if something happens with your family life or physical health, it's like dropping a crystal ball. Don’t drop the crystal ball for a ball that will just bounce back.

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Ben Quazzo is a growth specialist at Accel, at the intersection of tech and finance. Accel is a venture capital firm based in silicon valley, boasting 16 million under management!

We get the opportunity to pick his brain about what his work life is like, and what we can do as marketers and businessmen to better ourselves and our companies.

What’s Life Like in San Fran?

When Ben started out at Accel he had 0 responsibilities and spent 90% of his time shopping around for new opportunities and building them around new categories. He would speak to around 20/25 founders a week and find pockets where he knew Accel had an interest in building a hypothesis and an investment.

Fast forward to today, he manages 14 companies. His time is split 50/50 between thinking about what new investments look like and how he can make sure that all 14 companies are getting what they need from Accel. He's the point guard, the problem solver!

How Do You Filter Through Companies AND Not Get Intimidated When Going Through A Series A?

Two very big questions, let's see how he handles them.

On the side of the venture capital partners, they take a step back and think about their own responsibility. They are backing partners and NEED to be supportive. Partners need some experience in the category, vertical, or stage of the business the potential customer is in. You can’t be everything to everyone!

For the person shopping around for a partner, look within their portfolio. What companies has the partner or firm invested in? Are they similar to your business?

The biggest tip, do NOT cast a super wide net, find companies that cater to you. One of the myths you may hear about this period is that you need an introduction to a partner or firm, that is not true! Capital is a TOTAL commodity

The Next Step

When it comes to business proposals, getting to the point will put you MILES ahead of the person who sends in a 25-page business proposal. There is an inverse correlation with level of excitement about a company and the number of pages.

Don’t stress too hard about cultivating relationships with potential partners. It’s better to send out a message once a month for a year than to try and bombard someone when it comes down to crunch time and you need them. With technology moving everything at such a fast pace, it's SO much harder to get close with a founder, which is why Accel likes cultivating long relationships.

Building an Ecosystem

There are three big buckets we’ll break down:

International: 15 years ago, it was GREAT to be completely U.S. based. Now, with the boom of technology and social media, even if you are a tiny store based in your basement; you are universal.
Hiring: With SO much capital, it has made the hiring market more competitive than ever before.
Board strategy/composition: People aren’t thinking about this as much right now, but it is VERY important. Getting to an exit or to a public company is something you strive to accomplish; a lot of this is following through on a vision.

You may be wondering, “Is there a benefit to having a local firm AND a bigger brand like Accel?” And that's a good question!

If you are a local business and know that your next 5-10 hires will be in your area AND that your next customers will be also from that area, it’s worth finding a highly influential seed investor in that local area to bring on board. Maybe launch with another large investor when you reach your series A, because that’s when you’d want to branch out.

How to get in touch with Ben:

If you want to reach out to Ben and pick his brain a bit more, you can reach him at his email:bquazo@accel.com.

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💡 Who is Brett Sharenow?Brett is a trusted advisor in the world of strategy and raising capital from Venture Capitalists, Angels, and Private Equity Investors, making him a true fundraising specialist. He focuses on strategy and capital raising for startups and high-growth companies. With three decades of experience under his belt, he has raised upwards of $800 million for his clients.

You can learn more about Brett via his website: https://www.broadscope.com/ And you can follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/broadscopeconsulting

💡 Brett is helping to kick off the second season of the Scale By Numbers podcast. Because the focus of this new season is fundraising, we had to bring on an expert who knows the ins and outs of raising money. This is only part one of Brett’s interview, so stay tuned for part two coming soon.

In this first part, we discuss:
• The ideal time to start raising money
• Strategy gaps to be aware of when it comes to fundraising and scaling a business
• Key questions to ask and necessary criteria to meet before seeking money from investors
• Whether or not you should raise debt in order to maintain more equity
• Why advisors are critical in the early stages of raising capital for your business

💡 Highlights From This EpisodeWhen do people typically reach out to someone like Brett to begin raising money? Unfortunately, many people wait until it’s too late. A lot of business owners have fallen victim to believing a myth that it takes only 90 days to raise capital. Brett says the ideal time to reach out is about 12 months before you need the money. This provides enough time to go through the entire raise process, which involves coming up with what Brett calls the 3C’s℠: your compelling case for customers℠, financial model, raise strategy, and pitch deck.

When raising capital for your business, there are a few important questions to ask yourself. How will I raise money? How much money do I actually need, both now and in future rounds? What’s the potential ROI of that money? Will the business return the amount the investor needs so they’ll put money in? And will it return that money in the timeframe the investor needs? Answering these questions will help you determine if you should bootstrap or raise venture, angel, or private equity money, or if you should seek another option.

How do you find the right investor for your business? You need to look for the lead. The lead is the investor that’s typically putting in the largest amount of the round, but most importantly, is also setting the terms for the round. They’re going to issue a term sheet, which states how much of the ownership percentage the investors will get from the business owner for the money given along with many other conditions for the raise.

Finally, If you want expert support with your next capital raising efforts or business strategies Brett Sharenow with Broadscope Consulting should be your next call. In the last three decades, he’s raised more than $810 million for his clients. He’s worked in the U.S., Europe, and India and has deep experience with Venture Capital, Angel, and Private Equity investors—he’s a go-to professional for start-up and high-growth companies.

Need CFO Level guidance and support? Check out our new membership program The CFO Thinking Partner here! Within the membership, you’ll have access to LIVE support, dozens of resources, helpful tools, and we will connect you with experts who are ready to give you a hand up and over any obstacle that’s stalling your company’s growth.

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Working With Venture Capitalists to Raise Business Funding With Brett Sharenow

Guest: Brett Sharenow of Broadscope Consulting

💡 Who is Brett Sharenow?

Brett is a trusted advisor in the world of raising venture capital, making him a true fundraising specialist. He focuses on raising capital for startups, as well as high growth companies. With three decades of experience under his belt, he has raised upwards of $800 million for his clients.

You can learn more about Brett via his website: https://www.broadscope.com/

And you can follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/broadscopeconsulting

💡 Brett is back for a second episode as we kick off season two of the Scale By Numbers podcast. With his expertise in fundraising, he’s the perfect guest to share smart strategies to raise capital for your business. This is part two of Brett’s value-packed interview, so be sure to listen to the previous episode with the first half of our conversation.

In this second part, we discuss:

• What venture capitalists are looking for from business owners pitching them for funding

• Advice for finding the right investors to present to so you can get money as quickly as possible

• How venture capitalists really view a company’s valuation and handle negotiations

• How to present yourself in every pitch meeting you attend on behalf of your business

💡 Highlights From This Episode

How does a venture capitalist know if they want to entertain a meeting with a founder to potentially invest? First, they’re looking for warm introductions to the founder of the business. Oftentimes, someone the venture capitalist knows will either recommend or pre-screen the business, sometimes because they have insider knowledge on the product or service. Having systems in place and screening businesses beforehand helps this process go smoothly.

Is there a way to research potential investors to go after? Yes! There are databases you can buy into that will allow you to look up their previous investments. In doing this, you’ll be able to see which venture capitalists stepped up as leads and which ones were simply follows. Founders need to look for the venture capitalist who is going to lead the round, so make sure to pitch to a number of potential leads.

How should a founder present themselves during a presentation to potential investors? They should have a confident and grounded presence but never come off as arrogant. Instead, know the solution your product or service offers so you can clearly communicate the value it has to offer.

Finally, If you want expert support with your next capital raising efforts or business strategies Brett Sharenow with Broad Scope Consulting should be your next call. In the last three decades, he’s raised more than $780 million for his clients. He’s worked in the U.S., Europe, and India and has deep experience with Venture Capital and Private Equity investors—he’s a go-to professional for start-up and high-growth companies.

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💡Guest: Alex Low Head of Enterprise Strategy and Sales at Lately.

💡Who is Alex Low?

Alex has been in sales for quite a while, around 15 years, to be exact. He's recently joined Team Lately to help launch them into the stratosphere.

💡You can find him on:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlow/
Twitter: @Alexander_Low
Instagram: @digital_alexanderlow
Tik Tok: @digital_Alexander

And take a look at Lately, at Lately.ai.

🚀What is Lately? Lately is a social media management platform that creates content for you using A.I. Lately's A.I. takes your long-form content and turns it into dozens of social posts that drive engagement and use keywords that are proven to work well with your audience.

Creating and then distributing social posts across ALL social platforms takes forever, so using A.I. to turn content like blogs, podcasts, video, etc., into social posts and then distributing

💡What is the best piece of advice to give people on their marketing efforts? The biggest thing? Talk to your customers in a way that is meaningful to them. Go talk to your existing customer base, and give them your 30-second elevator pitch to get them to tell YOU what they think you do for them. If you asked 10 clients, you would get 10 very different answers because everything is based on how they interpret things.

💡Paid content versus unpaid?

Paid or unpaid, if a post is put in front of you, you're going to react the same way.
If you are looking at a paid post, you will react the same way you are organically viewing it.
Your brain can't differentiate between paid and not paid at that point.
Each platform uses paid content. Differently, some platforms like Linkedin do not rely heavily on ad revenue, unlike Facebook.

💡Linkedin : Being constantly visible is big on Linkedin; that is something that Lately can help with. Leaving digital breadcrumbs for your audience to never completely forget about you.

💡How do you keep learning? Marketing shifts every month, so staying on top of what's going on in the industry is not easy. Alex recommends listening to podcasts about this specific topic and coming out regularly so you will always stay on top of the trends. Websites like Social Media Today and a Facebook group called My First Million are also helpful.

💡How do you view partnerships? You can not be too rigid in partnerships. In the recent Lately partnerships with UpContentand Hubspot, they are formal partnerships in the terms that the content is simply integrated. And with things like this, you don't have to worry about kickback because it's all about helping people.

💡What is in store for Lately? Version 2 of Lately's A.I. is in beta. Version 1 was built in IBM Watson, version 2 is on open A.I. GPT, and version 3 is in Google Pegasus.

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R&D For You and Me – The R&D Tax Credit and Why You Should Care About it.
Guest: Tyler Kem Co-Founder & Vice President of Strike R&D Tax Advisory, tax consultant, and entrepreneur

Who is Tyler Kem?

Tyler Kem is a tax consultant and an entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Strike R&D Tax Advisory,

What is Strike R&D Tax Advisory?

Strike R&D Tax Advisory is a consulting firm that helps customers gain insight into the world of R&D tax law and aids in re-fueling their innovation.

R&D Tax CreditR&D Tax Credit is “a permanent federal tax credit in 2015, as part of the Path Act, which is really what opened up an immense amount of opportunities for startups, specifically, but also allowed for many other industries to start claiming that tax credit.”

The qualifications are very broad, with a basic rule of thumb: everything fundamentally relies on hard science. This applies to:

Computer science
Engineering
Biology
Physics
Chemistry

So if you’re a company in these industries, you probably qualify.

Technology
Engineering
Food & Beverage
Consumer Goods
And tons more

The R&D Tax Credit is a U.S. labor-based incentive. Instead of outsourcing, you can qualify if you keep your labor inside the U.S., which comes with paying higher wages.

Starting the Process

Many people who qualify for the R&D Tax Credit aren’t willing to pay the upfront fees, the retainers, and the monthly billings to claim the credits. And some companies are 10, 20, 30, even $40,000 out of pocket before they even know the size of the credits they’re going to be getting.

How Strike Can Help

So Tyler’s company Strike does a few things that make the process a whole lot easier:

Aligned their interests with the interests of the client from day 1
No out of pocket costs
No retainers
No monthly billing OR fixed fees
Success based fee structure (so they don’t get paid until the company is able to use their credits)
Offer unlimited audit support (in terms of hours… So if something gets challenged, they’ve got your back)
They EVEN give a fee guarantee on their claims, so if the IRS decides to claw back on 10% of the credits, 10% of their fees go back to the client.

If you want to go back in time and apply for these benefits before becoming aware of this credit, you can! The federal statute of limitations is three years from the filing date, so you can go back to the 2018 tax credits and see what cash refunds you have waiting for you!

How Does the R&D Tax Credit and the R&D Tax Provisioning Play into Financial Audits?

There are a few steps:

The Document Gathering Phase
The Calculation Process
The Deep Dive Phase

During the first phase, they can gather all of the financial documents; then they work with the business owners and software developers during the second phase. Then they can really understand their systems and find a nexus in between the expenses. Strike’s job is to work FOR the company; they’re not working for Strike!

If this doesn’t apply to you, tons of deductions and credits could be available to you in your own personal tax return, so don’t miss out.

Want To Learn More, about Strike and Tyler Kem?

You can reach Strike directly at striketax.com, you can also email him directly at Tyler@striketax.com, or you can call the number on the website and speak to one of the people

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E12 Scale by Numbers Podcast

Guest: Jonna Mooney| Founder | Affogato HR Consulting

**Topic: HR is never black and white; it "always" depends.

If you’re ready to build your financial muscle, how about a FREE copy of James Vanreusel’s (highly-acclaimed) book for CEOs? Get your Free Book**

💡 What do they do? Affogato Consulting partners help clients to implement practical, appropriate, and compliant solutions to HR issues. They work with small to medium size companies in many different industries across the United States. They understand that business people want to run their businesses, that employees are critical to the business, and that some parts of HR are intimidating. They use this understanding to create actionable steps so that your HR function runs smoothly.

💡 How can an HR consultant help a small team? Whether you have one employee or 700, having a consultant or team outside to help be a guide on the side is an excellent idea early on. There is a common misconception that HR is black and white, but its not. It's very gray with a lot of variations. HR consultants understand those gray areas, so it is essential to have a trusted advisor in your back pocket from day 1.

💡 Can an HR Consultant help build Culture: Your company culture happens whether you make it happen or not. Having intention around each decision you make, each hire you bring in, every policy you create is an even better idea. How you engage with your employees depends on the people in the organization, what they value or what they say they value, and what this business is and what it intends to be.

💡 How can an HR consultant help you scale? One of the things that HR is known for and what people look is help with compliance. Compliance is almost related to headcount. As investment increases, the headcount increases. On the one hand, you get involved in the black and white compliance, then in the gray areas, then as you grow your headcount, you start to think about how you protect the seed the heart of what the company is. HR outsourcing is a great way to grow, recruiting outside of just referrals because they aren't always the perfect fit. Outsourcing can give your company a global net spread and allow for more.

💡 Noteworthy Advice: . Hiring in any country outside of the US without engaging with an international HR consulting firm or a PEO in your back pocket is an expensive mistake. Both will have a network of consultants around the globe that can help ensure compliance in other countries.

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Topic: Preventing Bad Actors from Getting in the way of Good Business.

Guest: Candice Tal| CEO & Founder| Infortal

💡 Who is Infortal and what do they do?

Candace Tal is the CEO of Infortal Worldwide, a global risk management, and investigations firm. Infortal Worldwide works in 160 countries, has done over 2 million investigations and works with companies from Start-Ups all the way up to Fortune 100 companies. Their goal is to "prevent bad actors from getting in the way of good business."

💡What type of investigations does Infortal do?

Each investigation has different end purposes but similar goals. They focus on adding integrity to a growing business, help them grow with like-minded people on their team, and allowing them to flourish with honest employees with the same ethics and values. Infortal focusses on running corporate investigation due diligence checks in the following areas:

Executive/C-Suite
Business Partner Checks
3rd Party Supply chains checks
Adding Board/ Advisory Members

💡How does Infortal mitigate risk?

Firstly, reputation management is a priority. In Candice's experience, at least 20% of executives have serious issues that could cause serious business issues. Executive due diligence will enable you to prevent very serious issues from happening that you cannot find in a regular back ground check. Infortal looks for information that answers questions like.

Does this executive have a nefarious background?
Litigious behavior or conflict of interests?
History of misconduct?

💡What type of investigations should a company engage?

Maybe add in brief descriptions of each check (federal, business, real estate etc.) In a routine cheap background check, you do not find some of the deeper layers of an individual, so they can minimize the risk of a company looking for a new CEO by really peeling back the layers of the individual and making sure that they are 100% sure they have the right individual

💡What is the Infortal background check structure?

Infortal uses a 3 tier structure.

Tier 1 is a more advanced standard background check that can still find quite a bit more information than a standard check you would find on google.
Tier 2 is all public records, including all criminal history, civil level, county level, federal, and statewide databases; it looks at the department of corporations conflicts of interests, anti-competitive behaviors. For example, if a candidate is working for a competitor or had federal crimes.
Tier 3- This is the deep dive of the candidate's entire worldwide web history, including everything in Tier 1 and Tier 2 and even real estate transactions. '

💡How to get in touch with Candice?

Email| LinkedIN| Website

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E10: Scale by Numbers Podcast

Guest: Tim Kachuriak| Chief Innovation Officer | NextAfter

Topic: What moves and inspires people to donate

💡 Who is NextAfter? They have a simple yet extensive mission. They focus on learning how to maximize digital fundraising for Non-Profits, understanding what inspires people to give, and teach non-profits how to experiment to run campaigns from the donors' point of view.

💡What is the donor's journey? NextAfter supports Non-profits by providing a gap analysis of non-profit organizations from the donors' point of view. Non Profits must understand one thing "what inspires others to give." NextAfter gathers data from non-profit donation funnels and then runs actual scientific experiments and tests to figure out what works. They use forensic research to analyze large amounts of data in the non-profit sector. They are searching for patterns that lead to opportunities that lead to greater digital fundraising performance.

💡How do they help Non-Profits? NextAfter learns how people give, and then they perfect the non-profits' fundraising efforts to maximize their donations. They have run over 2,700 online fundraising experiments and discovered that the more you humanize communications with donors, the more effective and successful your fundraising would be. A huge part of fundraising is giving donors a sense of community. People give to people, not to websites, making as many human-to-human interactions throughout the timeline of becoming a donor. It should feel like you are part of a club by giving the organization a sense of community.

💡Do you know what moves people to give? To get into the heart and soul of what drives people to give to an organization, you must answer these three questions.

What is your appeal?
Is your value proposition exclusive and unique to the organization?
Is your value proposition being communicated clearly-is it credible?

💡Noteworthy Advice:

-Foster a culture of innovations and testing

-Create space for people in your organization to take risks,

💡When should a non-profit reach out to NextAfter: Right away! If you have unsuccessful fundraising attempts and have not figured out what went wrong, they can tell you, guide you and help you through the process. They offer many free resources on their website, not to mention years of research and results to help optimize non-profits' fundraising efforts.

💡How to reach out to NextAfter? LinkedIn | Website

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💡WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Craig Zingerline | Founder of Growth University

💡WHAT IS GROWTH UNIVERSITY? Growth University was developed to offer founders the strategy and the playbook needed to make it through the startup stage and eventually scale. This is a live cohort-based program that teaches founders to " go after customers holistically." Growth University offers hundreds of hours of courses, masterclasses, and resources that "focus on actionable skills that can be implemented right away and have been tried and tested to help your company grow."

💡BE WILLING TO EXPERIMENT: When you are just starting a company, you don't have a customer base, so making more personal relationships with your customers is essential, and then once you start gaining traction and doing something that works, you can sort of rinse and repeat to gain more customers. The early stages of demand are critical. You must learn quickly and early what works and what doesn't work. Experiments allow you to nail down your process, know where your customers are and, most importantly, where they are not, and how they value your product.

💡FINDING YOUR CUSTOMERS: As a founder, you need to recognize the sequence of growth; a founder needs to be self-reflective and ask themselves, "what are my strengths and weaknesses" in the relevancy of the content shared with customers. It is essential to find the proper channels for your specific audience. Not all channels are created equal, and they will differ for each business. You have to find out if your audience has low intent or high intent. If you have some high intent customers willing to buy your product and interact with your content, you have to find out what is working for them. The hard part is figuring out how to convert the low intent customers to have a higher intention with your content.

🚀HOW CAN GROWTH UNIVERSITY HELP STARTUPS SCALE: Craig helps founders with product-market fit and understanding the market they are in, getting the first bit of traction, and acquiring the first few customers. Growth University has courses that support many other areas of marketing (Facebook ads, Google Ads, Social Media engagement, Finding initial customers) to continue the momentum and move your company to the next stage-and ultimately scale.

💡HOW TO CONTACT CRAIG: Website | LinkedIn

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💡WHO WAS OUR GUEST:

Nathan Beckford | CEO and Founder | FounderSuite

💡ABOUT OUR GUEST:

This week's guest is an exciting addition to the Vanreusel Ventures Startup Stack; We had the pleasure of chatting with Nathan Beckford, the founder and CEO of Foundersuite. Their mission is straightforward but extremely important- "make awesome tools that help founders build awesome companies."

Raising money is a huge pain point for growing companies, and simplicity and support are what every founder needs when growing a company, and that's precisely why I decided to do this podcast. Nathan also has a podcast called "How I Raised It," which offers listeners 190 different ways that founders have raised capital. If you haven't listened to it, you should!

💡What is FounderSuite:

FounderSuite came to fruition from an idea of a spreadsheet that tracks conversations with Investors. There was a light bulb moment when trying to make the tool better, and magically FounderSuite was born! This software has been specifically for Start-Ups and Founders to help qualify investors, start communication with potential investors, create relationships, manage and track those relationships.

Noteworthy Tips for Building Investor Relationships:

Always, Always, Always do your research first. Qualify potential investors do not just "spray and pray." You will waste your time.
Spend time nurturing relationships before raising money.
Reach out to investors 6-12 months before they planned to raise money.
Send your company update for a few months, then wow with a buy-in option.
Once you start the fundraising round, run a tight process, reach out for help when you need it.

💡"How I Raised It'- How I raised it is Nathans podcast, which discusses exactly the title--How founders raised money. This podcast is fascinating and an excellent tool for anyone getting ready to raise money. There are 190 interviews and 190 different ways that companies raise capital. There is no one way to raise capital, but there are standard patterns that should be followed.

💡Fundraising Tips:

Fundraising is a full-time job for a CEO, so support is necessary.
Keep your Due Diligence in order-Do not to be the bottleneck
Maintain the momentum by moving quickly
Reduce friction by maintaining clear communication and benchmarks with stakeholders.

🚀HOW CAN FOUNDERSUITE HELP COMPANIES SCALE:

FounderSuite was created for founders so they can save time while raising money. This platform can save you hundreds of hours raising money and getting to know and maintaining relationships for investors. Foundersuite is an investor CRM database, and it helps bring structure, speed, and efficiency to fundraising and investor relations. In addition to that, they also offer other product features for financial intermediaries, investors, and accelerators and some additional features like Pitch deck hosting and over 80 start-up doc templates. Resources are essential during the critical stages, and FounderSuite offers hundreds of resources to help support founders as they prepare for fundraising.

💡HOW TO CONTACT NATHAN: Website | LinkedIn

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Scale By Numbers Podcast

💡WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Joe DeLucchi | President and CEO of CAL Insurance

💡What does CAL Insurance do? Cal puts together structured insurance programs, for businesses, schools, nonprofits, real estate investment groups, and successful individuals and successful families across the United States. They are business insurance advisors. They will help founders learn precisely what they need to cover their business and then go to bat for them and make sure they have the best insurance packages and coverages to mitigate risk.

💡Who should have an Insurance Advisor: Everyone! Insurance is very complex. The policies are created and written by lawyers and can be very difficult to translate. Without having someone on your side checking the boxes, there could be exclusions in your policies that you may not have known were there. No insurance is the same, and the complexities and hidden exclusions are embedded in the language. CALs goal is to explain their policies in precise terms and ensure that each of their clients has the suitable packages to fit their company RIGHT NOW.

🚀HOW CAN CAL INSURANCE HELP COMPANIES SCALE: CAL creates policies that protect a company from risk. Like other members of our start-up stack, mitigating risk for their clients is their number one goal. The most valuable thing that a founder can do is to get their insurances right from the beginning. Cal focuses on the transactional side of insurances. As advisors, they take a complete overview of the corporation, the business, the founder's goals, analyze where they are and where they are going, and create a "meaningful insurance program" to fit them perfectly.

💡Ideal Start-Up Insurance Package: Joe suggests that founders should be involved with finding the correct insurances for their business from the beginning. Why? Because who knows the business better than the founder! He was kind enough to go into deep detail about the ideal coverages that are best for a software company:

Workers Compensation--In every state you registered in
D& O Insurance
Professional Liability
Cyber Insurance
Errors and Omissions

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Scale By Numbers Podcast

💡WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Allen Goh | BakerTilly

💡ABOUT OUR GUEST: Allen offers clients more than 20 years of public accounting and audit experience. He leads several audit, review, and other attestation engagements for publicly traded and privately held corporations. Notably, Allen offers significant expertise working with clients involved in the technology industry. He drives values for his clients by understanding their needs and leveraging his experience, key contacts, and other services.

💡Allen's Expertise: Allen is in charge of the National Technology Industry practice lead for BakerTilly, which leaves him in charge of all the marketing and strategic direction relating to all the firm's initiatives relating to technology companies' technology. He specializes in high-growth technology companies. Allen shares that BakerTilly's primary specialty is software and software as a service but is quickly growing in eSports and gaming industries.

Leads going public/initial public offering engagements
Develops and presents audit findings to senior management and makes recommendations to improve effectiveness and efficiency
Holds multiple engineering and technology systems certifications

💡WHO IS BAKERTILLY? BakerTilly is an international Tax, Accounting, Assurance, Audits, and CPA consulting firm--and considered the 12th largest firm in the United States. They have been recognized as one of the "Best Places to Work" for women and considered the 10th largest accounting firm worldwide. Most recently, they are listed as one of Forbes largest employers in 2021.

If you are starting and looking for your first accountant, BakerTilly can help with that. As mentioned, they are an international tax and accounting firm with hundreds of CPAs ready to support. Maybe you are growing and are looking to upgrade your tax services--they can do that. Perhaps you are scaling and preparing to prove assurance to your investors with an audit. Yup. They can do that as well.

🚀HOW CAN BAKERTILLY HELP COMPANIES SCALE: One of the most common themes of the Scale by Numbers series is an Audit topic. On top of the many top-notch services that BakerTilly offers, Vanreusel Ventures has direct experience working with them on client audits. Audits can help a company grow quickly. Audits allow companies to raise money, show investors they are ready for growth, prove themselves to stakeholders, and get ready for explosive growth. BakerTilly uses its internal audits to focus on " strengthening an organization's risk management and compliance," "mitigate the risks affecting the organization," and " provide proof that an organization is moving in the right direction based on their goals."

💡HOW TO CONTACT ALLEN AND BAKERTILLY: Website | LinkedIn

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💡WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Francesca Puccinelli | Partnerships | Carta

💡HOW TO CONTACT CARTA: Website | LinkedIn

💡WHO IS CARTA AND WHAT DO THEY DO: Carta helps companies and investors manage their cap tables, 409A valuations, investments opportunities, and equity plans. Within one platform Carta offers everything needed to manage equity, in real time from Cap table management, 409A valuations, and Liquidity assistance. They offer plans that will grow with founders from start-up to IPO and beyond.

💡WHY USE CARTA: The common theme for the members of our Start-Up Stack is that founders need one source of truth for all of the functions within their business. Equity is complex, and ever changing and Carta has become the truth center for founders and their cap tables. The Carta platform automatically keeps cap tables up to date with little effort.

💡WHAT MAKES CARTA SPECIAL: Carta is special because they are a network company. Cartas mission is to " create more owners, and equity for all." The Carta internal team, and customer service team are client focused 100% of the time, and Carta has become is extremely agile in understanding the nuances of equity in an ever changing market.

💡WHAT IS NEW FOR CARTA: Carta recently launched a new product called Carta X. CartaX essentially allows companies, employees and investors to access liquidity without waiting to go public.

💡WHAT PROBLEM DOES CARTA X SOLVE: Companies are staying private longer. Previously this was an issue for private companies because shareholders were not able to access liquidity without the company going public, and companies were forced to choose. Companies are able to handpick who will be on their cap table. Founders can optimizes their portfolio and expand their investment opportunities, and employees who join Carta X will be able to access their liquidity within the company and diversify their portfolios sooner.

🚀HOW CAN CARTA HELP YOU YOUR BUSINESS SCALE: Carta will scale with a company. They offer free cap table plans for those who are just getting started, plans when you are IPO ready with advanced equity management and features and service to prepare you for liquidity, M & A, and IPO. And, of course, for the late-stage private company, they now have CartaX. Carta is consistently improving their products that answers every equity based pain point. (cap table management, 409A valuations, investors, shareholder liquidity). They are a network company, and will continue to expand their reach and offer diverse benefits to shareholders and optimize equity management in a way that others cannot do.

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💡WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Jon Osterburg | VP of Sales and Marketing | Jitasa | Non-Profit Accounting Firm

💡HOW TO CONTACT JITASA: Website | LinkedIn

💡WHO IS JITASA AND WHAT DO THEY DO: Jitasa is the largest national, non-profit dedicated accounting firm. They do not work with any other organizations--just non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations require a specific style of support and accountants with a particular type of training and non-profit accounting skills compared to different sets of clients.

💡WHY DOES JITASA FOCUS ON NON-PROFIT ACCOUNTING: Many larger or regional firms will work with non-profits, as well as other types of clients. But what ends up happening is the different sets of clients may become more profitable. Over time, the non-profit organizations will become underserved and will not be looked after and initially did.

💡THE JITASA MISSION:

Conscientious. We believe in the business of doing good, it's our principled passion. That means our daily lives are governed by our sense of what's right. We are conscientious to those around us – our cube mates, our bosses, our clients, and our suppliers.
Disciplined. We believe that enabling others to do good means being smart and realistic about what you can do today, tomorrow, and the future. It means planning. It means knowing exactly where you stand and what lies ahead.
Gracious. We believe in order to do good, you have to accept people as they are. We maintain grace with ourselves, our clients, and those around us. We recognize the good in everyone, support our community, and pay attention to each other.

💡WHAT MAKES JITASA SPECIAL: Jitasa is 100% outsourced, and remote so they do not ever get to meet their clients. They build a personal rapport with their clients but set clear expectations from the beginning of the engagement--it's the number one priority for both the sales team and the accounting team.

🚀HOW CAN JITASA HELP YOU YOUR NON PROFIT AS YOU SCALE: Each organization's needs are unique. Jitasa creates custom proposals for every organization based on their specific needs--they can "slice and dice" any service needed. This is very important for non-profit organizations because each organization has particular complexities, and the "one size fits all" approach will not work. As the organizations grow, they can slowly add on services around their needs to ensure all gaps are filled.

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🌲TAKE ACTION: If you are interested in being a part of the Vanreusel Ventures Forest, please reach out and let us know; we will gladly send you your very own tree kit!

WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Andrew Frankland | Director of Operations | ForestNation HOW TO CONTACT ForestNation: Website | LinkedIn

🌲WHO IS ForestNation: ForestNation is a marketing company that provides environmental marketing services centered around reforestation in deforested areas like Tanzania, Haiti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and regions in South America. ForestNation offers branded sustainable products and options for companies that support the environment, is fully sustainable, and adds an educational piece that engages all involved with reforestation as an action. The ForestNation mission is to reforest Mother Earth and motivate audiences to grow and plant their own trees. They do this by "creating products and services like tree planting kits that help you achieve your own goals, which results in more trees being brought to life. "

🌲WHAT DO THEY DO? With every item purchased and action taken on their website, ForestNation will plant trees in areas hit hard by deforestation and industrial agriculture. Through this program, they focus on generating sustainable livelihoods in developing countries with a goal to "stimulate local economies; develop leadership roles for women; and create a brighter outlook for future generations." By default, organizations that work with ForestNation help not only their own communities, but contribute significantly to the greater good.

🌲WHY ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING: The marketing world is a key driver towards negative environmental and social impact. Within the US alone, promotional products are worth appx 25 billion. When you look at promotional products like hats, pens, USB Sticks, --most branded products end up in the trash and are not biodegradable. From creation to getting to the landfill, we have had to use fossil-fuel generated plastics and products. Once the item makes it to the landfill, we are looking at a negative ROI for the company that purchased it and a 100% negative impact on the environment.

🌲HOW CAN FORESTNATION HELP YOU AS YOU SCALE: When you engage your customers and audience members in the full circle of sustainability from planting to growth to harvesting, you create a "full arc of awareness " and education that goes all the way through to the company. The benefits created from engaging your audience to plant a tiny seed- creates a unique style of brand loyalty that a pen or a hat just will not create. The brand loyalty created through this process is phenomenal. A small start-up can take their marketing efforts to a more meaningful level with items that boost engagement, and promote corporate social responsibility.

🌲EFFECTS OF DEFORESTATION: We are still the minority, the majority of people are farming. And when you begin taking that resource away, you start creating huge, huge volumes of very poor people and famine. Planting trees in these heavily deforested areas is the solution. If we are able to start planting forests to mitigate that, and to create food security, we have engaged that person who gets that tree at home, with planting t

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Scale By Numbers Podcast

Vanreusel Ventures is a member of several networking groups in San Francisco, and one of the main questions we get is "what is the best payroll provider or HR software? There are so many options, that it can be hard for a smaller business to choose one. They have different setups, and need different features. In this week's Scale By Numbers podcast episode, we take a deep dive into Rippling with their Lead Channel Account Executive Joel Lacayo. Joel discusses what makes Rippling unique, how they support companies throughout every stage of their business and what they have in store for the future. Rippling is more than just a payroll provider. They are set up to grow with your company, and include a high level of automation, and API integration for over 500 apps.

WHO WAS OUR GUEST: Joel Lacayo is the Lead Channel Account Executive at Rippling.

HOW TO CONTACT JOEL: Website | LinkedIn

🔥WHO IS RIPPLING: They are a younger company founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco. Rippling is an excellent payroll and HR platform that has taken technology integrations to the next level. They manage employee payroll, benefits, apps, onboarding, and more. They are one of our startup stack partners. We use them internally, and we have clients who use them and are very grateful for what they provide with regards to automation. They automate manual work like onboarding new hires. "In just 90-seconds, a company can set up an employee's payroll, health insurance, work computer, and third-party apps, like Gmail, Microsoft Office, and Slack." - Rippling.com

🚀HOW CAN RIPPLING HELP YOU AS YOU SCALE: Rippling focuses on being the one source of truth for employee information, increasing efficiency and accuracy, and decreasing human entering of information and interaction. When one piece of data is changed, that triggers Rippling to make changes to all the other departments for you. It will check for compliance, accuracy and alert the necessary people for actionable tasks. Ultimately, this automation will add the bandwidth that your People Ops and HR team need to create an accurate, automated and compliant HR machine.

🔥WHAT'S RIPPLINGS SPECIALTY: The system is centered around a-la-carte products based on where YOU are in your business journey. The platform can expand as you add to it. You start with the foundation--that's the employee management system. Then you build out your plan based on where you are in your company. Smaller companies may only need Employee Management and Payroll. In comparison, medium-sized companies may need to add on benefits and our ATS system. But then, for those larger companies, they can build a very sophisticated model to support every aspect of their people ops, payroll, benefits, hiring, and more.

🔥NOTEWORTHY ADVICE: When you're thinking about your employee management. Don't think about Rippling as just a way to pay employees, provide benefits, and document things. It's best to view it with an entrepreneurial mindset when planning and ask yourself questions like :How can I have a great staff? How will I build my company culture? How am I going to retain them? How am I going to pay them? How can I make sure my staff isn't bogged down and make work efficient and streamlined? Remember you're going to continue to have to compete with everybody else that's probably bigger than you.

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Scale By Numbers PodcastOn our kickoff episode of the ‘Scale by Numbers’ podcast, David discusses common founder issues and the legal complexities of becoming a scaling and successful business founder. He tells the story of how he has grown as a corporate attorney in San Francisco and why he loves going to bat for his clients. VLP Law Group specializes in helping businesses close deals and getting investors to invest in companies. Without a clean back story, “you will make it easier for investors to say no.” He shares tips on a few common founder questions and always recommends that founders gain support from a corporate attorney rather than turning to google for help!
WHO IS OUR GUEST: David Goldenberg is a corporate attorney and founding partner of VLP law group
HOW TO REACH DAVID : Website | LinkedIn
HOW CAN A CORPROATE ATTORNEY HELP YOU SCALE: David has built a practice at VLP which allows him to represent clients using a team approach where clients receive his direct attention on critical matters while still maintaining an efficient service for more everyday items. VLP Law Group is a founder-friendly group whose main goal “is to parachute in, to learn very quickly what it is that that’s your priority.” David says. He gives clients the personalized insight they need to make crucial decisions, and advocate for them to achieve their goals. David’s twenty-plus years of working with 500 companies have taught him to pinpoint the risks instantly and protect his clients from those risks. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” and Clients don’t see the 20 years of filter that he has when putting together contracts, term sheets, and stock option agreements. People choose David for his team with billion-dollar deal experience and focus on practical legal solutions.

WHAT’S VLP’s SPECIALITY: VLP law group helps companies of all sizes raise capital and general business matters. They also assist with exit transactions, whether that’s a merger or acquisition. They work on things like setting up a new company, joint ventures, equity investments, website, privacy policy, terms of service, significant customer agreements and selling your company at the end.

SHOULD YOU GO IT ALONE: If you are not good with paperwork and don’t like detail, it’s best to hire an attorney to do it for you. When you are trying to raise money, investors will say no to you if they don’t understand the backstory. It’s easier to start from the back and move forward than the other way around.

ATTORNEYS ARE NOT MIND READERS: David states it’s vital to set clear goals and objectives for your corporate attorney so they can focus on adding value in the right ways. Always remember, as a founder, it’s your company, not the attorney’s company. Your attorney will do what you need based on the priorities. Like any service provider, attorneys are not mind readers–you have to set clear expectations about your main priorities and concerns.

IS GOOGLE A GOOD SOURCE FOR HELP: There’s a lot of information out there, and David understands that people with zero legal background and smaller budgets need help. It’s okay to look for help, but If you don’t know what you are looking for or are running into problems, that is when you need to call for legal backup. Remember, the sooner you get help for an issue, or new business decision the less money you must spend in the future fixing it. It is best to keep your business free of skeletons.

Scale By Numbers: Recent Episodes

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